


Through the Pages and the Ink

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts Second Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 20:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: In which Harry is slightly faster and luckier in killing the basilisk, and finds himself with a choice to make.





	Through the Pages and the Ink

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Entre las páginas y la tinta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045243) by [fadamaja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadamaja/pseuds/fadamaja)



> #60. "Before you decide to murder me, let me explain..." Prompted by anonymous on tumblr. 
> 
> Halsey - [Colors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGulAZnnTKA).

Harry sucked in a deep breath as the basilisk's great head fell to the ground, its scratched-out, unseeing eyes blank with death. He was bruised and cut from falling and his hands felt raw from clenching the heavy Gryffindor sword, but otherwise he was uninjured, while his mythical opponent lay dead on the stone floor of the chamber. _I'm alive,_ Harry thought with deep gulps of breath as he took a few shaky steps and snatched the diary from the ground. He held it over one of the basilisk's fangs, prepared to destroy it and erase Tom's presence from this world. He only wished he could do the same with Voldemort.

"Wait!" the shade of the young man yelled when the diary was only a few hairs away from being pierced.

Against all odds, Harry stopped. Maybe it was the shaking of his tired arms, maybe it was the fear in Tom's voice, but Harry let him have his final words before death. He continued to hold the diary above the basilisk’s venomous fang, but met Tom's eyes as the shade glanced furtively between Harry and the diary. “Before you decide to murder me, let me explain.”

“It’s not murder,” Harry said. If this had been any less stressful of a situation, he would’ve rolled his eyes. “What you were going to do to Ginny—that’s murder. I’m getting rid of an outdated old book.”

“Of course it’s murder,” Tom replied with a hint of a sneer. He took a step closer to Harry, but stopped when Harry rested the diary against the fang. “It's true that I’m not flesh and blood, but I'm a person just as you are, not just a memory. I have dreams and desires. I feel pain. I'm alive, Harry. If you lower that diary, you’ll become a murderer. Is that really something you think your saintly Dumbledore would condone?”

Harry thought of Ginny, lying nearly dead on the stone floors. And he thought of Hermione, petrified in the hospital wing, missing all the exams she’d looked forward to acing. They deserved life, not this pathetic, murderous, blood purist shade of a young man. And yet, Tom may not deserve life, but Harry didn’t want to be a killer, either. Professor Quirrell still visited his nightmares, his screams in Harry's ears as he woke up in a cold sweat.

Whether Tom was fully sentient was a question for philosophers or other people more brilliant than Harry, who only went with his gut as he took in Tom's pleading expression.

Tom truly considered this death.

That was enough for Harry to consider him human.

Harry refused to live with another man haunting his nightmares. There was only exhaustion, not compassion, in his voice as Harry said, “If you want to live, you’ll get back in the diary and let Ginny go. Now.” When Tom opened his mouth to speak, Harry pressed the diary down against the tip of the basilisk fang and ignored his shriek of pain. Ginny had screamed, too. “Now.”

Defiance clear on his face, Tom shot him a dark look before slowly disintegrating before Harry's eyes. Harry opened the diary to a random page and watched as dark particles of magic were sucked inside. Once he was completely sure Tom was gone, Harry closed the book and held the diary above the fang with a shaky grip.

It would be bad, underhanded, _Slytherin_ to pierce it now that he’d gotten Tom back inside.

There was a two column chart in Harry’s mind, on one side common sense and the fact that Tom was certainly still dangerous. On the other side was only this: Harry didn’t want to be a Slytherin. He’d made his choice under the Sorting Hat, but he hadn’t expected that he’d have to keep making that choice again and again. Deciding to be brave instead of cruel, just instead of self-serving. Did other Gryffindors have to try so hard to be a Gryffindor? Or was it only him who was this way? Harry Potter, the great pretender, even as he wielded the Gryffindor sword.

What was the right thing to do when all of his choices felt wrong?

The worst, most shameful part was that Harry had liked Tom. Before he'd found out the truth, he'd thought Tom was helpful, friendly, charming. When he'd first seen him in the chamber, Harry had been worried for Tom's safety just as he had been for Ginny's. He'd wanted to save Tom from the basilisk, not knowing that Tom was a basilisk in human skin. No one had ever told him evil could be handsome. He only had Voldemort to compare to and the ugly face on the back of Quirrell's head couldn't possibly charm anyone's goodwill.

Harry throw the diary onto the ground, disgusted with Tom and himself and the whole entire world. The diary landed on its spine, open to the middle of the book.

 _Harry?_ Tom wrote.

Just that. Just Harry’s name.

“I don’t know what to do,” Harry said aloud. He sank down to the floor next to Ginny, crashing from the adrenaline and leftover fear. Harry searched for her pulse. It took a moment to separate hers from his own rapidly beating heartbeat, but he soon realized that Ginny’s pulse was increasing from the slow beat from before. Ginny was strong. She would live. She had to, because otherwise how could Harry ever look the Weasleys in the eyes? He'd been welcomed into their house, into their family. He couldn't get their youngest child killed. But could he kill her almost killer? He collapsed against the dead basilisk's side. It was cool to the touch, but not slimy or wet. “There’s a soul inside here, isn’t there? I mean, if you’re sentient, you probably have a soul. And Tom, he walks and talks and wants things for himself. He’s as real as I am.” When his gaze landed on Fawkes, Harry asked, "What would you do, Fawkes? You saved my life against the basilisk. Would you do the same with Tom?"

Fawkes had been perched half inside the Sorting Hat, but at Harry's words, he flew on top of the diary.

"Be careful," Harry cautioned, but then decided his words were unnecessary. Fawkes had been fearless against a basilisk. This younger, handsome version of Voldemort would hardly be a threat to him.

Right before Harry's eyes, Fawkes began to sing a mournful song. Harry thought perhaps that Fawkes really would destroy the diary, but instead of clawing at its pages, tears fell from Fawkes' beady eyes. Its pages began overflowing with ink watered down with phoenix tears, the sluggish substance sinking into the stone floor. Five shimmering lights flew in from the chamber’s entrance, zipping through the air and into the diary, which began to glow. For a moment, Harry couldn’t see anything at all, blinded by the white light. He clenched his eyes shut until it became bearable, and when he opened his eyes, one last ball of light sank into the diary.

Harry’s ears were full of song. He gripped Ginny’s hand tightly in his own, occasionally glancing back at the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, but mostly watching Fawkes. So carefully did he watch that he saw the tips of Fawkes’ feathers catch fire. The flames spread inward to the rest of him. Harry had already seen one of Fawkes burning days, but he still cried out in something he didn’t dare call fear as the fire spread to the diary with no heed to the wet pages. They burned together as Fawkes’ song grew squeaky, shrill, young, and a bright column of fire erupted from where Fawkes stood. Harry threw an arm over his eyes and automatically reached to shield Ginny, but within moments the flames vanished.

Left behind was a tiny little phoenix chick, one that settled in the crook of a month-old baby’s arm. The diary was gone and the baby had Tom’s dark eyes and hair as it blinked rapidly in confusion before beginning to cry.

“Fawkes,” Harry said, panic slipping into his voice as the baby’s cries grew louder, “this isn’t what I meant.”

Fawkes trilled. It sounded, impossibly, like you’re welcome.

Harry was never going to trust a phoenix to solve his problems again.

**Author's Note:**

> (And then Harry spends the next few years suspiciously trying to figure out if Voldemort is really a baby or just pretending to be. Just, peering at cute little baby Tom like “I’m watching you Mister”.)
> 
> (Alternate ending:  
> “What do you think I should do, Fawkes?”  
> The diary erupts into flames, ends up a charred husk.  
> “Yeah, you’re probably right.”)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


End file.
